In The Best American Poetry 2001, poet and guest editor Robert Hass wrote, "There are roughly three traditions in American poetry at this point: a metrical tradition that can be very nervy and that is also basically classical in impulse; a strong central tradition of free verse made out of both romanticism and modernism, split between the impulses of an inward and psychological writing and an outward and realist one, at its best fusing the two; and an experimental tradition that is usually more passionate about form than content, perception than emotion, restless with the conventions of the art, skeptical about the political underpinnings of current practice, and intent on inventing a new one, or at least undermining what seems repressive in the current formed style. [...] At the moment there are poets doing good, bad, and indifferent work in all these ranges." Critic Maureen McLane said of Hass' description that "it's hard to imagine a more judicious account of major tendencies."[3]

Carol Ann Duffy, editor, Hand in Hand: An Anthology of Love Poems, Picador (anthology); 36 poets from around the world were each invited to select a love poem written by someone of the opposite sex and appearing opposite the selecting poet's own love poem[16]

James Fenton: A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed, Viking / Farrar, Straus and Giroux[17]

Paul Muldoon, Poems 1968–1998 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); a New York Times "notable book of the year"; Irish poet living in the United States

Amos Oz, The Same Sea (Harcourt); a novel about sexual hanky-panky involving a man, son and several women; most of the book is in verse; the author collaborated on the translation by Nicholas de Lange); a New York Times "notable book of the year"

^[3] Hass quoted from his Introduction to The Best American Poetry 2001, by Maureen McLane in "Eclectic collection: A new anthology of American works includes a wide range of forms, styles and themes", a review of the book on page 4 of the Books section of The Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2001, accessed via Newsbank.com Web site, October 13, 2007